Email marketing for newbies
and professionals

Another benefit to creating your own content is the ability to institute your own affiliate or reseller program. This means recruiting other online marketers to sell your product for you, and you receive either a percentage of profits (with affiliate programs) or a flat fee for the rights to sell your product (with reseller programs). These types of programs are discussed in greater detail in the following section.

The downside to original content is the time investment you must make. If you do not have extensive or specialized knowledge in your chosen topic, you may want to enroll in an affiliate program, as the results can be just as effective and profitable in either case—as long as you know which areas to focus on.

These days it’s easier than ever to create your own e-book. Many new computers come with desktop publishing software that allows you to format, add graphics and embed links easily with no programming knowledge. You can also find free or low-cost software for creating e-books, including cover creation, which is an integral part of your e-book as it will be the first thing buyers see when considering your product. Check out this e-book creation program:

Antechinus® eBook Wizard: Compile your eBooks easily and in no time - ideal for manuals, newsletters, articles, help files, training materials and tutorials, courses, and "portable" websites.

Create your e-book for free: If you can write and format your book using your computer’s word processing software exactly the way you want it to appear on-screen, you can simply convert the file to PDF (Portable Document File) format, the most popular e-book format, viewed using the free Adobe Acrobat reader. You don’t have to own the full version Adobe Acrobat software to convert your file to readable format. There are several web sites offering free PDF conversion. A few of them are:

NOTE: Another exciting benefit to creating your own content is this: you get to attach the title of “author” to your name! If you’ve always wanted to write a book, this method may be just the opportunity you have been looking for.

Creating original e-course content: An e-course is simply an e-book broken into timed installments, providing the same information in a manner that allows the buyer to absorb one portion before taking on the next. E-courses can be enhanced with self-study questions and interactive elements; by providing consumers with more, you can charge more and still have satisfied customers.

Setting up an e-course for distribution is even easier than preparing an e-book: simply determine how many parts your course will be in, break the information into segments and put them into your autoresponder program. With an e-course, you will have two separate autoresponder series: one containing your marketing message and “teaser” information, and the other containing your actual product.

In the next section, you will learn exactly how to set up your autoresponder program for the best marketing results.

Affiliate programs
When it comes to making profits with autoresponder programs, most people choose to become an affiliate or reseller for an existing product or service. The benefit to this method is apparent: your content is already created for you, and all you have to do is sell it. Sounds easy, right? It is easy, but there are some things you have to know before entering one of these programs in order to be successful.

First, let’s define the difference between affiliate and reseller programs:

Affiliate programs: Many internet programs on a wide range of topics use affiliates to boost their sales. It’s free to join an affiliate program, but you keep only a percentage of the profit you make (albeit a relatively high percentage); the rest goes to the parent company. Additionally, most affiliate programs offer bonuses in the form of money or “rank” when you sign up affiliates beneath you. The higher up in rank you move in an affiliate program, the more exposure your affiliate site gets. Affiliate programs set up everything for you, providing a web site with a distinct URL. Unfortunately, the URL only differs from other affiliate members by a few characters, so it’s easy for buyers to arrive at a mirror site run by another affiliate. This problem can be minimized or eliminated by using a tool called NameStick, a URL streamlining service discussed later in this chapter.

Reseller programs: In reseller programs, you will pay a one-time fee to purchase the program and all selling rights for it. This means you can then resell the program and keep 100 percent of the profits. The main difference between this and affiliate programs is the rate of profit and initial investment. Affiliate programs require no upfront investment, but take longer to reach the profit levels gained by retaining the full price of the program. With effective autoresponder marketing, you can quickly earn back the investment made in reseller rights, with all the profits going to you as a result.

What you need to know to profit from affiliate and reseller programs

The main thing to remember is this: hundreds of other people are selling the exact same product as you. One of the most important things you must do with affiliate and reseller programs is to keep an eye on your competition and try to make your product more attractive than theirs. There are several factors to consider in this process:

• Price. This one is obvious. You may not have much leeway in setting prices with affiliate programs, but with reseller programs you can check out how much others are charging for the same product, and set your price a bit lower. This means lower net profit per unit sold, but your higher sales volume will more than make up for it. Internet shoppers love to compare different prices, and if yours is the lowest they will buy from you.

• Marketing message. Make your autoresponder series more convincing than the competition, and more people will follow your links and buy your product. Later on we’ll discuss crafting powerful autoresponder messages that get results. You will also find information on setting up your web site to draw customers in and stand out from the competition.

• Bonuses. Everyone loves to get something for free. You can give away free e-books, mini-courses based on the material contained in your product, or free newsletter subscriptions (as long as you make the content of your newsletter informative and worthwhile) that would be otherwise unavailable to the buyer should they purchase your program from another seller.

With affiliate and reseller programs, you already have a fully developed product people would want to buy. This leaves you free to concentrate on your marketing effort. If you put all the proper components in place and invest extra time in developing your autoresponder message, you will be able to automate your profits and keep your money machine going with little effort or maintenance.

Getting Started

A simple Google search on your topic (search for ‘[topic] affiliate program’ or ‘[topic] reseller program’) will turn up plenty of options for you to choose from. Also, following are a few of the many directories of affiliate and reseller programs, searchable and grouped by topic, that will help you on your way to profiting from autoresponders.

Affiliate and reseller program directories

• Affiliate Match: A comprehensive directory of over 2,000 affiliate programs on various topics. The site also provides information on making the most of affiliate programs.

• AssociatePrograms.com: Another comprehensive directory with over 8,000 programs, also containing lots of information on making affiliate programs work for you.

• Affiliate Programs Directory: Over 40 topics listing thousands of affiliate programs. This site is updated frequently to provide the latest and hottest in affiliate programs.

• 2-Tier: Over 2,000 affiliate programs, searchable and grouped by category.

• Affiliate Program Directory & Network Reviews: This site lists and reviews affiliate programs, and also hosts a forum for affiliate program discussion.

• Affiliate Hangout: Affiliate program directory and a link exchange program to help increase web traffic to your affiliate sites.

• SponsorDirectory.com: Searchable and topic-grouped affiliate directory with over 6,000 programs listed, and an extensive affiliate program resource section.

• PayMeUp.com: This site lists 200 affiliate and reseller programs, but is selective in its listings and promotes only the highest paying and most effective programs.

• earnFind.com: Provides a vast directory of affiliate programs, rates the top paying programs, and gives information on the most popular software providers for starting your own affiliate program.

• ClicksLink: Over 3,000 listed affiliate programs, with sections dedicated to new programs and top programs.

Remember, the key to succeeding with affiliate and reseller programs is creating a phenomenal autoresponder series that grabs subscribers and takes them step by step from interest to sale. We will now explore exactly how to create these enticing messages and start your autoresponder profits rolling in.

Next: Crafting your autoresponder messages